Wang Mingmming: Anthropology in China

Anthropology in Mainland China in the Past Decade: A Brief Report

Wang Mingming

Original published in Asian Anthropology

Wang Mingming is professor of anthropology at Peking University. He has co-authored Grassroots Charisma (Routledge, 2001) with Stephan Feuchtwang and has published many Chinese works on anthropology and anthropological studies of China, including Social Anthropology and Sinology (1997), Prosperity Bygone (1999), Beyond Rural China (2003), and The Lineage of Xicun (2004). His email address is <wangmingming@263.net>.

 

Anthropology began to be known to Chinese intellectuals through translation near the end of the 19^th century. In the 1930s and the 1940s, the discipline enjoyed a period of expansion. During the period, a generation of Chinese anthropologists grew up and produced many international standard works. In the 1950s, anthropology was restructured by the ideological apparatus of the communist state as a part of minzu yanjiu (nationality study) whose chief aim was to classify and order ethnic groups (nationalities). Between the 1960s and most of the 1970s, anthropology was repressed as a “bourgeois subject” (zichan jieji xueke). Around 1979, after over 20 years of absence, anthropology reappeared in mainland China.

In the 1980s, the advocates of anthropology were a generation of historians and ethnologists who used to study under the instruction of the first generation of Chinese anthropologists such as Wu Wenzao, Li Anzhai, Fei Xiaotong, Lin Yaohua, and Lin Huixiang. In 1979, in Beijing, the Chinese Ethnological Society, whose chief calling was to revitalize evolutionist social historical studies of national minorities and their historical relations with the majority (the Han) as well as nationality policies, had been endorsed as an official organization. In 1980, anthropologists – mainly those from South China - jointly established the Chinese Anthropological Society and placed its secretariat in Xiamen University where anthropology gained a lot of support. In 1981, the first national conference of anthropology was held in Xiamen. Zhongshan University and Xiamen University created their own departments of anthropology respectively in 1981 and 1984. Some old classics and new textbooks of Western anthropology were translated. Anthropologists from the West and from Taiwan and Hong Kong were invited to deliver lectures to Chinese professors and students. Abstract discussions of the political usefulness of anthropology for China’s reforms were presented.   

The achievements of the 1980s should not be under-estimated. Nonetheless, somehow the “disciplinary reconstruction movement” (xueke chongjian yundong) proved to be quite distant from a success. Between 1989 and the early 1990s, due to complex ideological, political economic, and educational institutional reasons, anthropology re-entered a period of crisis. One of the “symptoms” of the crisis was the elimination of Xiamen University’s department of anthropology in 1989. Another was the long pause of the work of building departments and research centers. For several years, publication of anthropology also underwent a decline. The situation did not change until the mid-1990s.

Since the mid-1990s, anthropology in the mainland has enjoyed a more continuous and prosperous period of development. The beginning was the promotion of anthropological concepts by scholars working in non-anthropological disciplines. Especially in comparative literature (or comparative cultural studies) and in legal culture studies, old and news ideas from Western anthropology were translated and discussed as what was hoped to inspire the re-conceptualization of Chinese culture. Within anthropological circle, things also began to change in a positive direction. In 1992, in Beijing University, Institute of Sociology and Anthropology, which had established by China’s most well-known sociologist of the 20^th century, Fei Xiaotong initially to promote “the Chinese school of sociology”, created a Center for Anthropology and Folklore. Since 1995, with the support of the Ministry of Education, The Ford Foundation, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, ISA organized 6 advanced workshops on social and cultural anthropology. Many major anthropologists from abroad have been invited to speak to young anthropologists from different regions of the country. Many prominent scholars from comparative literature and legal culture studies have also been included in the lists of workshop participants. Driven by the dynamics in anthropological and non-anthropological circles, anthropology as a discipline has come into a new stage of development.

As Harrell has noted, “since the mid-1990s, there has been a further shift, with the establishment of more anthropology programs” (Harrell, 2001:141). Apart from Zhongshan University and Beijing University, many other universities have created their own departments, institutes, or sections for anthropology. Notably, Central University for Nationalities, Yunnan University, Guangxi College for Nationalities, Shanghai University, Nanjing University, Sichuan University, Wuhan University, Northwestern University for Nationalities, Beijing Normal University, Qinghua University, Shandong University, and many other places, all have developed anew their own programs of anthropology. In major national social science research institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), more than one programs of anthropology have been organized. CASS’s Institute of Sociology created its Center for Cultural Anthropology in 2002 and soon its Institute of Nationality Studies, which had been more conservative concerning the promotion of Western style. anthropology, changed its name into the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology.

In the past decade, along with the extension of its “sphere of influence”, anthropology in the mainland has made significant progresses in the following aspects:

 

Teaching

 

One aspect of the work that the departments, institutes, and centers have done has been the development of teaching programs. In the past 10 years, many universities have developed their own courses on anthropology. Sociology, archaeology, history, law, and literature departments in many universities have also had their own introductory anthropology courses. In the 1980s, both the anthropology departments in Zhongshan University and Xiamen University had offered undergraduate courses in anthropology. Since the mid-1990s, Yunnan University, Central University for Nationalities, such degrees have also been available. Just recently (April, 2005), Xiamen University’s department of anthropology has been re-established and it has decided to re-formulate its undergraduate curricula. Graduate degrees in anthropology have also developed. Zhongshan University, Xiamen University, Central University for Nationalities, and Beijing University began in the mid-1985s to train graduate students to work in the field of anthropology. But the doctoral degrees that these universities offered were either historical or sociological ones. Since the mid-1990s, M.A and Ph.D programs in anthropology have been formally approved by the Ministry of Education. So these universities have had developed independent graduate teaching programs. Progressively also, except for Zhangshan University which has insisted on the “four field ideal”, many programs have turned their attention toward more focused training of social and cultural anthropology. In the 1980s, the training of anthropology was limited to introductory courses. Since the mid-1990s, specialized courses of kinship and social organization, economic anthropology, political anthropology, religious anthropology, ecological anthropology, and anthropology of tourism and globalization have been emphasized. More and more, ethnographic fieldwork has become a requirement for doctoral degree studies. Ph.D theses are written in Chinese and are basically unknown to scholars outside the Chinese-speaking world. But they are of increasingly high quality.             

 

Research

 

       In the past decade, anthropological research has also advanced in certain positive directions. Among the various topics of study, ethnographic and social historical studies of Han communities in the so-called “Eastern parts” (dongbu) of China have been the most eye-catching. Lineage, popular ritual, and state-society relationships, which have received attention from Western anthropologists since the 1950s, have become popular research topics among Chinese anthropologists. Influenced by younger anthropologists who obtained their Ph.D degrees in the West and Japan in the reform. decades, many anthropologists are now keenly interested in new topics such as social memory, ethnicity, political economy, gender, urbanism, everyday life, and life history. The so-called “Western parts” (xibu) have recently re-emerged as a core region for ethnographic studies. Many anthropologists working on these regions have continued to concentrate on historical studies of national minorities. But more and more scholars have become involved in applied studies of development and tourism and have turned to Western sources for reflecting on “Chinese problems” such as modernity, state-nationalism, “ethnic identity”, and globalization.

As previously, most research projects have focused on the Chinese “national self” and have “nativistic characters” (Wang, 2002). Their majority interest has been in the “inner” – the Han - and “outer” - the non-Han - zones of Chinese civilization. Along the boundaries between the Han and non-Han, prior to 1949, roughly there had been a division of labor, with the “Northern School” (Bei Pai) led by Wu Wenzao of Yanjing University paying more attention to rural communities, and the Southern School (Nan Pai) concentrating on ethno-historical studies of ethnic groups. In the 1950s, anthropologists from both pre-1949 schools were sent to conduct “nationality identification” (minzu shibie) research among the ethnic minorities (Wang, 2000). In the 1980s, both rural studies and nationality (minzu) studies were re-promoted. But at the stage, dialogues between the two schools were rarely heard. By contrast, since the mid-1990s, there has been an obvious shift toward a synthesis. In the past decade, there has in addition a move backwards toward pre-1949 anthropology. Classical examples of Chinese ethnography have been reprinted and re-gained their popularity. Many anthropologists have restudied the old famous sites of pre-1949 ethnographic research. In most examples, these studies have been conducted without reference to Western ethnographic re-studies, in a way, simply to follow up the post-1949 social changes, or simply to revisit the places without rethinking their interpretive models. Nonetheless, these revisits have contributed to a newly emerging trend toward theoretical rethinking through re-studies in the past few years (Wang, 2005).

 

Publications and Journals

 

Certain ideological restrictions on publishing critical ethnographies have continued to be effective. But other obstacles of the 1980s’ sort have mostly been cleared. The decrease of difficulties in publishing has resulted the rapid increase of the number of anthropological books in the bookshops. Translations of Western, and to a lesser extent, Japanese, works on anthropology have continued to grow in their numbers. In the 1980s, books translated and published were mainly American evolutionist, historical particularist, and neo-evolutionist classics. Since the mid-1990s, structural anthropology, interpretive anthropology, historical anthropology, and post-modernist anthropology have become central to translation projects. Many publishing houses have played an important role in producing anthropological monographs written by Chinese scholars themselves. To publishing houses such as Sanlian, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, Chinese Social Science Press, Nationality Press, and many university presses, rural anthropology and ethnographic notes on ethnic minority cultures have been the most interesting titles for publication.       

In 2000, in the national conference of anthropology held in Xiamen, the Chinese Anthropological Society made a decision to create a specialized journal of Chinese anthropology and in 2002 it succeeded in publishing its first issue (the journal is entitled Renwen Shijie, or The World of Culture). Regrettably, so far the second issue is still waiting to be edited. In spite of the lack of a specialized journal of anthropology, many multi-disciplinary academic journals - including university bulletins - have created special columns for the subject. In the North, Sociology Research (CASS), Nationality Research (CASS), Du Shu (Sanlian), Northwestern Nationality Research (Lanzhou), Folklore Research (Shandong) have included many research articles and book reviews written by anthropologists. Most bulletins of universities for nationalities have developed extensive sections of anthropology. Among these bulletins, the Bulletin of Guangxi College for Nationalities and the humanity and social science journal of Yunnan University (Sixiang Zhanxian) have been the most active among all in publicizing anthropology.  

 

Seminars and Conferences

 

Most departments, institutes, and centers of anthropology in the mainland have organized their own seminars (but so far none of such seminars have been held on a regular weekly basis) and conferences. Since the 1980s, the Chinese Anthropological Society has organized 6 national conferences. In the late 1990s, the influential “National Advanced Workshop on Social and Cultural Anthropology” toured from Beijing to Southwest, Southeast, and Northeast of the country, and was a success. The topics discussed during the workshop periods included anthropological theory, fieldwork, interpretation, cross-cultural comparison, and regional anthropology in China. Most of the lectures and papers presented at the workshops have been published in special collections (included in Sociology and Anthropology Series, Beijing University). The Advanced Forum for Anthropologists initially created in Guangxi has also toured to other parts of China and become influential. In addition, since the mid-1990s, there have also been more specialized conferences or workshops, deriving from large international joint research projects. 

 

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In view of the growing number of anthropologists and that of teaching, research, and translation products, in the past decade, the prosperity of anthropology in the mainland can be said to be unprecedented. By now, the Chinese anthropological circle has comprised diverse groups of anthropologists who have come from different generations and educational backgrounds. In 1989, when Jacques Lemoine wrote his review, he expressed his worry about “the difficulty of finding successors among youthful students” (Lemoine, 1989: 111). After 15 years, his worry seems totally out of date. Old style. ethno-historians and ethnologists have continued some of their earlier practices such as studying minzu wenti (nationality issues). New generation social and cultural anthropologists, either trained abroad or in Chinese universities, have produced interesting monographs and research articles. Undoubtedly, tensions between and within different generations have existed. But such tensions seem not to have much impact on the productivity of Chinese anthropological circle. Reconsiderations of the place of anthropology in Chinese history have also emerged as a new topic of research, and many texts have also involved debates concerning many theoretical issues such as those of indigenization of anthropology, ethnic identity, and globalization raised by anthropologists in other countries.

Like Chinese economy, Chinese anthropology is booming and, if it has any problems, many of them must have also derived from its “over-heatedness”. Reflecting on his experience in promoting sociology in post-reform. China, Fei Xiaotong has recently criticized post-reform. Chinese sociology as something that has been too “rapidly accomplished” (su cheng) to have sufficient knowledge accumulation needed to set good foundation for its own construction. A discipline that has been “rapidly accomplished” is bound to lack solid foundation of knowledge (Fei, 2001). Like Chinese sociology, post-reform. Chinese anthropology has also been “rapidly accomplished”. In mainland china, systematically trained anthropologists are still a minority and, to a great extent, the productivity of anthropological works and students has been higher than the quality of the products. Teaching programs that have been aimed to benefit studies have often been disrupted by internal and external problems. The enterprise of Chinese anthropology will continue to expand in the near future and teaching and researching staff and students and research projects, monographs, articles, and translations will continue to increase. But as I would venture to predict, for the very reason that Fei has specified, the discipline will also encounter some of the problems that it had experienced in the late 1980s. How can we create an “anthropology with Chinese characteristics” without totally de-anthroplogizing it? How can we make anthropology “useful” and “popular” without also making it a sort of propaganda or a part of the work of the state? … Such questions remain to be debated.        

 

 

References

 

Fei, Xiaotong, 2001, Shicheng, Buke, Zhixue (Learning, Restudying, and Researching), Beijing: Sanlian Shudian.

Harrall, Steven, 2001, “The anthropology of reform. and the reform. of anthropology”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 30: 139-61.

Lemoine, Jacuqes, 1989, “Ethnologists in China”, Diogenes, 177:83-111..

Wang, Mingming, 2000, “Xixue Zhongguohua de lishi kunjing (The historical dilemma in the ‘sinification’ of a Western science)”, in Wang Mingming Zixuanji (Selected Writings by Wang Mingming), pp. 1-39, Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press.

____2002,“The third eye: towards a critique of ‘nativistic anthropology”, Critique of Anthropology, Vol.22, Issue 22, PP.149-174.

_____2005, “Jicheng yu fansi: ji Yunnan sange renleixue tianye gongzuo didian de zaiyanjiu (Inheriting and reflecting: notes on the ethnographic restudies of three Yunnan communities)”, in Shehuixue Yanjiu (Sociology Research), 2005(2): 132-254.

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